The present invention relates to a method for processing silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials and more particularly to a method for processing at least two kinds of such materials, in which one color light-sensitive material provided thereon with a coated emulsion layer having a silver iodide content of not less than 2 mole % and another color light-sensitive material provided thereon with a coated emulsion layer substantially free of silver iodide can be processed in the common (same) processing solution(s), whereby the size of a processing apparatus can be minimized and operations thereof can greatly be simplified.
Silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials (hereunder referred to as "color light-sensitive material(s)") can roughly be grouped into the following two classes: one of which is color light-sensitive materials for taking photographs represented by color negative films and the other of which is color light-sensitive materials for print represented by color paper. These color light-sensitive materials have conventionally be processed only in large-scale photofinishing laboratories, but recently a small-sized processing system called "Minilabo" has been developed and thus they are now processed even in photography shops.
For such small-sized processing systems, it is of primary importance to have a small area for installation and a small working space required thereof since they are generally installed within a narrow space such as the space within a shop. For this reason, there has been a strong need for the development of a processing method which allows for an automatic developing machine comprising a processing system to minimize and which makes it possible to simplify processing operations.
Responding to the aforementioned demands, Japanese Patent Un-examined Publication (hereunder referred to as "J. P. KOKAI") Nos. 60-129747, 60-129748 and 61-134759 propose integrated automatic developing machines which can process color light-sensitive materials for taking photographs and those for print, which are conventionally processed separately, in the same processing bath(s) during a part or whole of the processes. If such an idea could be realized, the foregoing two kinds of color light-sensitive materials can indeed be processed using a single automatic developing machine, thus the space for installation thereof can substantially be reduced and the operations can be simplified since the number of processing solutions or baths to be provided or used can be substantially minimized. However, the foregoing patents simply propose ideas that different kinds of color light-sensitive materials are processed in the same bath(s) and do not disclose solutions of the problems associated with such a processing in the same processing solution(s).
The color light-sensitive materials for print such as color paper are generally formed using a silver chlorobromide, silver chloride or silver bromide emulsion substantially free of silver iodide (average AgI content thereof=not more than 1 mole %). Contrary to this, the color light-sensitive materials for taking photographs such as color negative films are obtained using a silver iodobromide emulsion having an average AgI content of not less than 3 mole % for the purpose of enhancing its sensitivity and graininess of the resultant light-sensitive 67 herein means the ratio (expressed in mole %) of the total 87 halides included in the light-sensitive emulsion layer.
It has gradually become clear that various problems arise when color light-sensitive materials greatly different in their halogen compositions inclusive of such silver iodide contents are processed in the same processing solution(s) or bath(s).
In particular, when two kind of color-sensitive materials different in the AgI contents are processed in a common desilvering process, it has been found that the desilvering rate of both these light-sensitive materials becomes low.